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Understanding Unknown Unicast Forwarding

Unknown unicast traffic consists of unicast packets with unknown destination MAC addresses. By default, the switch floods these unicast packets that are traveling in a VLAN to all interfaces that are members of the VLAN. Forwarding this type of traffic can create unnecessary traffic that leads to poor network performance or even a complete loss of network service. This is known as a traffic storm.

To prevent a storm, you can disable the flooding of unknown unicast packets to all VLAN interfaces by configuring one VLAN or all VLANs to forward all unknown unicast traffic to a specific interface. This channels the unknown unicast traffic to a single interface.

 

Related Documentation

 

Published: 2014-07-23

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